Homage to Claude Debussy

the last achievement of our foundering age
has been to place a powerful telescope
in orbit round the unforgiving sun
enabling scientists to see out
to the very borders
of the visible universe

and there at last the scientists have seen
a planet orbiting a distant star
and on that planet there’s a mighty ocean
beneath that ocean there’s a vast cathedral
and in its tower there is a giant bell
swung endlessly by the lifeless tides

it peals throughout the empty ocean
and each dead wave that laps the sterile shores
sounds this lament across unsympathetic space
wealth and pride erected me
on dry land — but the sea rose up
from icecaps melted by our pride and greed

nothing else remains
which leaves unanswered
the greatest question of the age
are we alone? — or out there somewhere
among a billion billion worlds might there not be
even bigger fools than us?

Clark Nida